2023-10-28 15:43:43
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Saturday that the war once morest the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas had “entered a new phase,” three weeks following the start of a war sparked by the deadliest attack in history of Israel.
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The UN has said it fears an “avalanche of human suffering” in the Gaza Strip, where some 2.4 million inhabitants are crowded together, lacking water, food and electricity, and who have found themselves since Friday without communications or internet.
Since October 7, the Israeli army has been relentlessly shelling the small Palestinian territory in retaliation for the Hamas attack since which more than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel, mainly civilians, according to local authorities.
Hamas, which controls Gaza, said 7,703 people, mostly civilians, had been killed in Israeli bombings, the heaviest toll since Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territory in 2005, following 38 years of occupation.
The Israeli army continuously bombarded the Gaza Strip during the night from Friday to Saturday and carried out a ground incursion on the territory of approximately 360 m2.
In all, “150 underground targets” were struck in the north of the Gaza Strip where, according to the army, Hamas directs its operations from a gigantic network of underground tunnels.
She reported “several Hamas terrorists killed” including a leader “who took part in the organization of the October 7 massacre” which deeply traumatized Israeli society.
According to the spokesperson for Civil Defense in Gaza, Mahmoud Bassal, “hundreds of buildings and houses were completely destroyed” in the nighttime raids.
The heaviest bombings, according to testimonies, focused on areas around two hospitals, al-Shifa in Gaza City and another in the Jabaliya area in the northern Gaza Strip.
“We used to call our loved ones to see how they were doing, but last night we mightn’t do that. In the streets, people have become lifeless bodies walking,” says Jihad Mahdi, a resident of Gaza City.
“It was bombing everywhere”
In the Shati refugee camp, within the limits of Gaza City, the bombings caused significant damage.
Smoke and an acrid burning smell filled the air at sunrise in Ashkelon and Sderot, while fighter jets continued to fly at low altitude and detonations might be heard coming from Gaza.
During the night, Hamas, which said it was “ready” to face an Israeli ground offensive announced for days, reported clashes between its fighters and soldiers in Beit Hanoun (north) and al-Boureij (center), and fired salvos of rockets towards Israel.
After announcing an intensification of its strikes “significantly” on Friday evening, the army confirmed on Saturday that its forces had “entered Gaza and expanded their operations there”, following two incursions with armored vehicles over the previous two nights.
“We will continue to bomb from the air and the sea,” said army spokesman Daniel Hagari.
“Anguish” of hostage families
At the end of “a night of immense anguish”, the families of the hostages, mostly Israelis, held by Hamas in Gaza said they were “worried” regarding their fate and demanded explanations from the government.
According to the army, nearly 230 people, Israelis, dual nationals or foreigners, were kidnapped on October 7 by Hamas, which has since released four women. The Islamist movement, which had threatened to execute hostages, estimates the number of them killed in the bombings to be “nearly 50”.
These strikes “are something that puts the hostages in danger,” said Mr. Rubinstein, spokesperson for the Forum of Families of Hostages and the Disappeared.
On Saturday, a senior Hamas official, Moussa Abou Marzouk, said in Moscow that his movement was trying to determine the location of eight hostages with dual Russian and Israeli nationality in order to free them.
Russia, unlike the United States, the European Union and Israel, does not consider Hamas a “terrorist” organization.
The bombings coincided with a communications and internet blackout in Gaza.
NGOs and UN agencies have reported losing contact with their teams in Gaza.
Humanitarian operations and hospital activity “cannot continue without communications,” said Lynn Hastings, a UN official.
the head of EU diplomacy called for “a pause in hostilities”
“Serve as a cover”
On October 9, Israel imposed a “total siege” on Gaza, cutting off water, electricity and food supplies, while the Palestinian territory had already been subject to an Israeli land, air and sea blockade for more than 16 years.
“Many more” people will “soon die” due to the siege, said the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini.
Israeli spokesperson Daniel Hagari said the army will allow “the entry of food, medicine and water for the population” of Gaza on Saturday.
Since October 21, 84 trucks of humanitarian aid have arrived via Egypt, according to the UN, when at least a hundred are needed per day.
“Stop this madness”
In New York, the UN General Assembly called by a large majority for an “immediate humanitarian truce”, a resolution welcomed by Hamas, but rejected by Israel.
Israel wants to “annihilate” the Islamist movement, in retaliation for October 7. That day, in the middle of Shabbat, the weekly Jewish rest, hundreds of Hamas fighters infiltrated from Gaza onto Israeli soil, where they carried out the deadliest attack in Israeli history.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday accused the West of being “the main culprit of the massacres in Gaza.”
The international community fears a regional conflagration, while Iran, support of Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, has issued warnings to the United States, a close ally of Israel.
Tension is also very high in the West Bank occupied since 1967, where more than 100 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers since October 7.
On Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, exchanges of fire are almost daily between the Israeli army and Hezbollah. The headquarters of UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon was hit by a shell on Saturday, a spokesperson for the peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said.
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